addict. (coffee, sugar, man, and phone, and probably cigarettes if i ever have one again)
list-bearer.
resigned.
hopeful.
bored.
confused. (i thought the little guys would win, we’d keep a govt of, for, by the people, but that’s not what’s happening. how is this what we’ve made?)
I went on a four-day retreat by myself to a cabin in the woods with no running water or indoor plumbing. I kept myself warm with a woodstove, and at night it was five degrees. I hauled water from the house up the road to make my tea and coffee. I read at least four entire books. I did use my phone, no lie, but not really, at the same time. And I brought a puzzle, and worked on it. There was a sofa and a bed in a loft, and I snuggled right down into what in fact is one of my dreams, unhurried silence. I confess I didn’t wear my hearing aid all the time. The resulting pressure-free life was pretty good. By day four I was well and done with outhouse-life, but until then I could really do it just fine. The cold was invigorating, and felt friendly. The view from the outhouse seat was uninterrupted trees. (no door) And it was a retreat cabin owned by a Quaker organization so it was CHEAP. It is not everyone’s idea of retreat, but it hit all my spots.
There’s a lot to say about it. and someday I will. but I started writing morning pages while I was there, three pages every day, emptying out the vessel onto paper, and i’ve kept it up. today my head is full of cotton balls and so i’m having a hard time finishing, so i decided to come over here instead and it is counting, it is. It has been two full weeks. Fourteen days of writing daily. and I’m really proud of that. And it has been writing for myself, unchecked, uncensored and I’ve come to think its really healthy for my mental health, to get some of this cotton candy out of my head. I am an enormous daydreamer, absolutely swooning in the past or in a story about the trees when I should be doing taxes or writing a simple sentence. The number of times I catch myself staring off into space when I’m in the middle of writing is astonishing. ACTUALLY ASTONISHING. like, unbelievable to me, how much my brain runs off and jumps the fence.
Big revelations of the retreat:
My anxiety can really ruin my life experience. And it has no bearing on actual life, unless it involves freezing to death because the fire goes out, but even then… it still needs to be addressed. I need to get a therapist.
I really do think I should be reading more, and wish I could figure out how to get paid for it. Editing is a good step but so few and far between and I don’t have the time or energy to hustle for it. Plus, I barely have the time, and I need an empty house and I refuse to ask for that, as the universe will provide that soon enough.
I am a part of the magic of nature, as much as a cardinal. May I do as little harm and bring as much joy. (this is my heart tattoo now.)
I want to go back to school, but not an educator’s classroom, I want more training in situ for kids with special needs, which guess what? is every single one of them, some more complicated than others.
So there. I am off to see a wicked important basketball game today, at which i will shout and hoot and holler, because I’m actually crazy for basketball. Sigh. The complications of us all.
wish i could teach the value of small things to other people. there has to be a crack somewhere so i can get in, so i can show this. just a sliver.
the value of small things.
realizing that as much as i love people, and i really do, i can’t handle more than two or three at a time. this is a direct reflection of my hearing loss. the insecurity is overwhelming and I feel directly the shrinking, the ways in which i try to make my own self invisible to counter the possibility of embarrassing myself, or just being lost while surrounded by people. so, i left a conference i wanted to be at today, because it was lunchtime and too much small talk. and i don’t exactly know how i feel about leaving, but i am trying to honor my small cup, and i was overwhelmed and starting to feel isolated, and i needed to leave. so i did.
i’d love to grow flowers, but i listened to a flower farmer at this farmer’s conference and I don’t think I want that. I want to make a hundred dollars in a summer from the yard, or maybe double or triple that, but I don’t want to be a farmer. i don’t have the wherewithal for it. (unless you know two or three people who could build it all for me? cuz, man, if i could start with a greenhouse and some long beds? maybe we’d be talking.) but still, just the stand by the road. that’s it. that’s all. little cups.
i’m hoping to switch things up a little this summer, maybe give me some time to grow my own garden. last year i didn’t have the time and it was a shade of sadness.
yesterday i was bemoaning my lack of writing, and lovely bob leaned over and put his arm on my shoulder and said simply, ‘you do not have the time.’ and he was right. and here i am, finding it and forgiving myself for the times when i choose a movie or a nap instead of productivity.
trying to keep it small, folks.
small things have great value.
love you much,
kate
Browsing at a TJMAXX and not buying this, but loving it?: My medicine after leaving the conference.
*it’s about the preciousness of it, the necessity of loving it while I have it, for it will soon be gone.
I’m going to stash a bunch of things I’ve written here, and see if the utterly disconnected can be connected, because webs webs webs you know.
The golden woman child that I keep at my core, that dancing molten thing that runs my system, is she percolating, stretching out, trying to send gold out my fingertips, and I’m being sensible and wearing the correct waterproof gear?
where is the wildness in me? Do I want to locate it, really? Will I go along for the ride in joy or will I hold on tight with my just-so gloves and complain about my lack of planning? A woman in her carriage, being bounced around, or the driver on top, recklessly bearing down the path… Please let me be the driver. I want to be the driver, gloves on, but driving wildly, on. On.
Life is glorious. Maybe I should actually focus more on my distractions, that is where the joy lives.
And there was so much hope, hope that we would sleep in, that things would be cancelled, although I knew it was not going to come to pass. I tried to let them down softly. At this point, there is only one who still wants to run outside in the dark, trampling snow and bringing in snowballs. I felt myself saying no to an invitation, knowing that next year she may not invite me out, might not even go out, and could feel the snow fall from the branches softly on this part of my life.
I’m my own flit and scurry today, my brain and its wanderings having meshed. The definition of flighty, I suppose. Far from flaky, though, my layers are thick and spangled throughout with scarlet and deepest midnight blue, with the occasional birch bark interlude.
Oh good lord. Don’t I hang on? Drag my dolls through the dirt like so much appalacian storytelling? I can’t even say anything here. Pulling along behind me all my old stories, the exes now that I am a grown woman, the hurts and slings and arrows, all piled up on that dirty little rag doll. I wonder if she’s some inner landscape I have been avoiding? The ways in which she changes and ages, the things that finally fall off of her. If anything does. She appears more worn down than amputated. Frazzled, ragged, worn. The words I’m using for my oldest cares. The ones I don’t investigate because they might feel fresh if I should pick them up and dust them off. And I’m not of an age to play with dolls anymore. I wonder how she’s tied to me. If there’s a cord cutting that is possible for imaginary doll friends who carry all the old cares, the old hurts and sorrows. And if there is, would she become something I mourn, once I cut her loose?
And there you have it. Some of it. Bits and bites and I’m just curating at this point, making my little cups of strong coffee, cherished.
a miracle. my head is a little foggy, but there is coffee nearby, and a kid with a tiny tv in her lap. the table is cluttered again, as is regular, and there is a christmas tree bowling set-up, an empty water bottle on its side and an unattached cord, a wide fat white candle, two empty glasses and a box of magic cards. every chair has something on it. a scarf, a stolen coat, a gifted denim shirt, and a pretty brown bag that used to have dumplings in it. it is quite lovely really, that bag, especially for a bag that is explicitly for ‘take away’. i love it when the mundane are treated with craft and meaning.
i’m not sure what i came here to write about today, just know that i needed to. i’ve finished a book lately, Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and it was wildly familiar, while being utterly separate from any experience I’ve ever had. Maybe as a former sidecar to an alcoholic, I recognize it? Maybe its my dream of escape returning, that young mother’s delusional dream? The main character willfully and determinedly tries to drug herself into sleep for a year, in the sincere hopes that when the sleep is done, there will be clarity, blueberries at the end of the rainbow and such. The names of the pills were mostly foreign to me, but I sure do know that my alarm bells will ring if anyone ever mentions any of them to me. but the dream of somehow waking up? a true deep waking up? oh yes. I feel that dream, have lived that one.
maybe that’s what sleeping is all about, for me. the hope for the waking up well-rested, the clarity of mind and purpose. the appreciation of the coffee and the clutter with an uncluttered mind.
and then again, maybe sleeping is just about sleeping. resting. breaking the mind from its yoke.
I guess thats what i came here for, to talk miracles, and waking up, and sleeping. I’m not going to lie, I’m not sure what you’ll make of it. but i’m here for it, still a little bit groggy, because the wakeup was unclear. Definitely cluttered. Its a beginning, and there is alot more. Dare I mention the yoke of ‘woke’? HAAAAA. i dared, and it felt awful, and I’m sorry. But my grimace is heading towards light-hearted on that one, sort of. ugh. sorry.
what’re your daily miracles? How do you wake up in the morning? What is your sleep like? what are the waking dreams?
